It's So Easy and Other Lies Page #3

Just every day, the cowbell.

Just the perfect record to learn

to play drums on.

He used to pack up his Tama kit

into the back of his Gremlin

and drive out to Rancho La Brea Park

and set up on the lawn in the park

and practise out there.

We would do things like

stop by the dressing room and go,

"Hey, you're travelling with us."

And we had our own jet.

So we'd, like, throw a couple

Guns N' Roses guys on the jet.

And it was fun for us,

because, here we are,

basically a punk rock band

and I've got these kindred spirits.

Well, we got a jet!

It's like, this is funny.

This stuff doesn't happen to us.

I was in Seattle selling drugs,

just a few years before.

I got a jet. And now I got brothers.

Let's just go wreck sh*t!

I think it was the Monsters of Rock show

where they just blew

everybody out of the water.

Within a week of that show was talk

about this new band from America

that was kind of a mix between...

Like, just really edgy

heavy metal and punk.

A trippy phenomenon to be inside of.

Because you go out on tour...

And we'd come back to L.A...

We were gone for a year and a half.

We came back

and everybody's dressed like us.

Guns N' Roses and...

The big shows, that stuff

made me uncomfortable.

- Oh.

- It's uncomfortable to be around it.

I mean, it was...

I don't know.

It was surreal.

That my buddy was playing the Kingdome.

When we walked into a room,

we were sort of like this little gang.

And nobody could f*** with us.

And nobody could f***ing

rock better than us.

Never felt intimidated by anybody

and it was just like...

This thing, and it was very tight.

I remember seeing them

opening up for Aerosmith.

And Duff was on the road.

He'd been on the road

opening for Aerosmith for a while.

So I couldn't even talk to him.

Couldn't get a hold of him.

There weren't cell phones or anything.

So I had to get my own

tickets to go see him.

Seeing my brother up on

the stage in front of,

I don't know how many,

50,000 people maybe.

And for the first time, seeing him

in that sort of environment...

Thinking, "Oh my God, this is amazing."

"On Christmas Day, 1989...

"I gave her the Halliburton luggage

Aerosmith had given me

"and asked her to get out.

"I was adamant.

"And I was keeping the dog.

"Merry f***ing Christmas.

"I felt completely lost and heartbroken.

"I thought I'd let my mom

and my family down.

"I thought I'd been caught living a lie.

"Or rather, lies.

"Those little lies you tell yourself

"to help make your life fit

a more idealised image.

"Now, they'd all suddenly been laid bare.

"For me,

"it all boiled down to one simple thing.

"Just like my dad, I thought,

"in whose footsteps

I'd tried so hard not to follow."

It was...

Awful.

It was awful.

Um...

We got to see, right before us,

infidelity on my father's part.

We got to see our mother break down.

We would be there,

you know, picking up the pieces

of what my father left behind.

Including each other.

Duff had come up to visit us

so that he could introduce us to his wife.

And we went out for breakfast at

a really nice restaurant.

So, he ordered a screwdriver, a triple.

And he told the waitress,

just keep them coming.

And that was at breakfast time.

She was a heavy drinker. And she, um...

She really contributed,

I think, to his problem.

That was not a good marriage.

Bye.

"A lot of people around me

hoped that once the day-to-day pain

"of the marriage

and its immediate aftermath faded,

"I would be able to pull back a little from

my everyday vodka habit.

"But instead of straightening out,

"I kind of fell apart.

"My drinking had taken off

as the marriage went sour.

"And when she left the house,

I started to add more drugs to the mix.

"My first drink of the day slipped forward

"from about 4:
00 in the afternoon

to more like 1:
00.

"I also started to score

larger amounts of cocaine

"so that I could drink more

for longer periods of time.

"It proved a diabolical cocktail for me.

"Now I could drink until I finally had

to sleep, and if you're doing coke,

"you don't have to sleep

for up to four days in my case.

"The only time I slowed down

was if someone I respected,

"like my brother Matt,

would say, 'Slow the f*** down.'

"And I figured I'd cut back on

the drugs and booze at some stage

"when the heartbreak subsided."

The concern for me

mainly came from the anxiety

that he was having.

And our family has

a background of having anxiety.

So, I knew how he was feeling.

So, we would get together and...

He would be having

a panic attack or something.

We would talk about it

and try to calm him down and...

I think that's where my concern was

for him, was to try to control his anxiety.

"The attacks felt like being on

a merry-go-round, just starting up,

"then going faster and faster,

until it was too fast.

"Then the ride turned into a Gravitron.

"Where you're spinning so fast,

you are pinned to the walls

"and the bottom drops.

"You're unable to move,

"unable to make it stop.

"Unable to get off."

"The sugar in alcohol speeded up

panic attacks,

"as did cocaine."

"But drinking even more was

the only way I knew to combat the attacks."

You know, that's their problem.

"It was a harrowing experience

each time I arrived at a concert venue.

"And then came the gig at

the Riverport Amphitheatre,

"outside Saint Louis on July 2, 1991.

"The show started about an hour late,

"which by this point,

almost counted as on time.

"We played about an hour and a half and

were in the middle of Rocket Queen

"when all hell broke loose."

I remember we were playing Rocket Queen,

and there was this whole

breakdown section, and we go into this...

We're just jamming.

And there's a guy in the pit,

and he's filming,

right in front of the security guys.

And Axl on his microphone says,

"Hey, stop that guy from filming."

"Axl dove into the audience to try to address

something the house security had not."

And the next thing I knew

he leaped off the stage

and I just saw all these

black feathers flying out.

"His foray didn't last long.

"And I helped pull him upright,

as he lunged back up on stage.

"He then strode to the mic and announced

that because security hadn't done their job,

"he was leaving.

"He slammed the mic down, and stormed off."

It was like a mob scene, you saw

the crowd gradually turning to a mob.

So, I remember going in

Axl's dressing room and saying,

"Hey, man,

maybe if we go back out there it'll...

"Take down the crowd a little bit."

Axl said to me,

"Yeah, let's try to make it back up."

And at one point Ax says,

"Okay, let's go back out."

We're standing next to the stage

watching the stage, but at this point,

there were people on the stage.

They were taking the amplifiers

and there was like two guys

carrying the piano off.

But the reaction was something

that nobody was expecting.

Then it got really bad.

Fights broke out.

"We began to worry about

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